Hawkwind MP3's

[M Holmes]

Jon Jarrett writes:

> On Mon, 11 Nov 2002, M Holmes wrote:

> > Michael Blackman writes:

> > > True.  It sucks balls.  But where else can anyone get Warrior on
> > > the edge of time or ASAM and several others.  Hawkwind certainly
> > > wouldn't get any royalties from ebay sales.

> > In the strict sense that's true.  However on deeper analysis it's
> > clear that as with cars, part of the sale value of CD's takes
> > account of the resale value.  Therefore if the band are on a
> > percentage royalty then a healthy secondhand market does add to
> > their income.  Basic piracy obviously doesn't unless it serves to
> > bring new buyers into the process.

> Mike, is this actually true at all?

What's truth? It is standard economics though.

> It seems to me that if it were to
> be then someone would have to be surveying all second-hand outlets to
> have an idea of which artists were selling and which weren't, and I
> find it very unlikely that sort of information's available to
> high-street retailers, or even that they'd let it affect their prices
> if it were.

Nope. It's the buyers who know that stuff they buy has some resale value
and have some rough idea of what that value might be. in the case of
cars, there's actually a book of resale values of various models
modified by age and condition. This plays a key part in the financing of
new cars where "trade in" is used.

In the case of items such as CD's the buyers generally know the rough
resale price of a CD which is modified by the band's popularity and
sometimes by rarity of the release.

The retailer can't charge any more for an item than the consumer is
willing to pay and what the consumer is willing to pay will depend in
part on what the consumer calculates that they can recover on resale of
the item.

That makes for a top price. Obviously effects like competition from
other retailers might force that price lower for any particular
retailer.

Not that these are the only factors affecting pricing, but the resale
value is a factor which affects price.

FoFP